Fitting New 350 Engine Under Original 1976 Console

[John3325]

Fellow straight inboard members and owners, I am curious to who has repowered in past few years that can give me some insight to how they modified their consoles.

I did some measurements this week under the console now that the old Crusader is out. The new 350 Crusader (based a 2014 diagram I found) is a hair under 25" from the engine mount (at 50%) and the new Merc 357s are 26 3/8" from the engine mounts.

I only have 24" of clearance where the front engine mounts would be to the start of the console , and if I cut out a few things I could maybe get 25". The rest of of the console has a solid 25" of clearance.

Has anyone repowered recently and had to play this clearance game under their original console? Am I overthinking this? My old 350 Crusader had about a 1 1/4" spacer under the front engine mounts and it still fit.

Measuring from the crank centerline of the Merc 357 to the top of it - 21 15/16". Measuring from the crank centerline of the Crusader 350 - 20.5"